ENGAGEMENT SESSION PHOTOGRAPHY SAMPLE: WE BE CLUBBING

For this creative engagement session, I used my Nikon D200 with the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8.

I absolutely love photography. Especially when I can bring a smile to my subjects.

The engagement session below was extra special to my clients as we were able to shoot at the place where they first met…30 years ago.. Yes, 30 plus years.

So how did I make this happen. It was simple really. As usual once the engagement session is booked, I ask my clients to write up a bio and to include their interests and love story.

After reading their love story, I knew that I had to make their engagement session special. What better way to make it a special shoot then to photograph them at the place where they met. In this case, it is Leonardo’s Night Club on La Brea.

At first, I was afraid that the club was no longer in operation. But after a few seconds with google and following up with a phone call, I confirmed that Leonardo’s Night Club on La Brea is still open for business.

I then contacted the manager of Leonardo’s Night Club on La Brea via email and wrote a masterpiece about my client’s situation and how they met for the first time at their club 30 years ago. The rest was history. I must say it is rather difficult to say no to what i wrote. I know if roles were switched, there is no way i can say no either.

My clients greatly appreciated what I did for them. It was visible to them the extent of what I would do for a concept. Below you will see a series of images that display a current day depiction of what happened 30 years ago.

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: For the 1st image I wanted to tell the story of a mystery man walking into a club filled with beautiful women. To execute this image, I had Armando stand under one of the arches a few feet from the entrance looking at  Rosa as she stands along the bar area with a drink in her hand. To create that mystery, I made sure to underexpose Armando so you can barely make out his face and appearance and correctly exposed Rosa and had her in the foreground so that the attention goes to her first and then to the mysterious man midway in the image.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: To tell the story of the start of their first meeting, I wanted Rosa to first sit on the bar alone as she looks out into club with smile.  To capture this image took a little time to ensure that I set the shutter slow enough to capture the bar lights. I then used my alien bee 1600 mono light with a 30 degree grid which controls the beam of light emitted to only 30 degrees from the light so that only Rosa is exposed and the light doesn’t over power the bar lights.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: Now i replicated the same image above of Rosa with Armando. I also used the same lighting setup.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: In this image, I had Armando walk towards Rosa and reach out his hand to hold hers. I wanted to bring attention to Rosa’s smile so I made sure to correctly expose her.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: The couple after meeting at the bar sat down at a table right next to the dance floor. To capture this image, I set the shutter speed slow enough to capture club lights and aperture at 2.8 to ensure there is enough blur in the background to force more attention to the couple.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: Now the ice is broken, I asked the couple to get a little closer and connect. The lighting setup is similar to the image above.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMAGE BREAKDOWN: To end the story, I had the couple stand outside the club to discuss plans for future dates. I shot this image with the intention to do HDR. High Dynamic Range to add a little more dimension to the image since the sun wasn’t at the ideal position. So I had to do my best to capture a compelling image with the external factors.